I love, love, love the StudioPress Altitude Pro theme. I even used it here on FandomWebDev.com

On this site, my background images were very bright, so the gradient overlay or “filter” as some refer to it, works just fine. Making the images a bit muted allows for the text on top to be visible.

So what do you do when the photos aren’t so bright – or you just prefer a brighter image? I spent a whole bunch of time reading up on this. If you’re like me, you want a JUST TELL ME HOW TO DO IT! answer. I didn’t find one, but all my reading and video watching leads me to the HERE IS HOW TO DO IT answer.

Edited to add: Thanks to Christoph Herr for the explanation of the % versus the alpha transparency: While the alpha transparency numbers dictates how much gradient/overlay there is, the % dictates WHERE in the image the overlay begins.

Also adding that the color of the overlay is determined by this setting: